Hasbro Q&A – The Answers (Week 71/Jedi News Week 33)

You asked the questions and here’s the answers to the 33rd batch of questions asked by Jedi News and our sixth for 2009.

Thanks to Hasbro and Hunter PR for giving fans around the world a chance to get their voices heard and their questions answered especially here at Jedi News, the UK’s premier and favourite Star Wars fan site.

Thanks for sending in your questions and keep them coming for the next Q&A (take the link above or on the left hand menu), we need your questions by midday on Friday 12th June please.

Read on for the Questions and Answers…

1) A simple quick question, why does every Han Solo figure now have the same blaster? The long barrel scope version is only seen in ANH, after that he has the shorter scope version in ESB and ROTJ. Any chance of getting this version of the blaster for ESB and ROTJ versions of Han in the future?

Thanks for pointing that out – we’ll take a look another look to make sure we are selecting the most accurate blaster for Han.

2) Recently images have surfaced showing carded shots of the ARF Trooper and it strikes me that the hips on this figure look terrible. Will these be altered for a future release or is there still time to do something for this outing?

That is a pre-production version with the first generation hips. The ARF Trooper has ball-jointed hips, developed so he could ride an AT-RT, but this early version is not where they will end up. We have spend considerable time working with the vendor to bring them in tighter to the body.

3) How come that retail prices for Star Wars figures are so widespread, when they basically all come from one source (the same factory). Prices range from $7 in the U.S. to $15.48 in Germany, $12.88 in Belgium and Netherlands, $11 in the U.K. and $18 in France…? With the worldwide economy in turmoil and oil prices at such low levels – the price should be coming down not up! Personally I can see a lot less sales because of the increase in price, and especially once the younger audiences have vanished from the toy aisles again. [Keep in mind that the prices quoted above are not inflated for special figures but can be found at large retail stores selling each figure from standard cases for the same prices.]

The short answer is that we sell figures to all retailers in U.S. dollars which fluctuate in price and present problems for pricing stability; on top of that there are widely varying local taxes. Combine these effects, along with retailers own margin needs, and you can have tremendous variability in local prices for all toys, not just Star Wars figures.

James is an active member of the Star Wars collecting community, and is the Brand Director for Jedi News. James is also the host of the Star Wars Collectors Cast, and co-host of RADIO 1138 on the Jedi News Network.